Indeed, as soon as I arrived there and parked my car in the spacious parking place in the “Rifugio Lagdei” (one of the many starting points for excursions), I was completely astonished. The park is located in the south of Parma, about 50-60km from it. The best way to reach it in my opinion is to take the highway of the “Cisa” (Highway A15 Parma-La Spezia) , but you can take a look for complete directions here.

this is the view you get on your arrival to Lagdei

a curious fountain made with a giant rock with a small lizard carved into the stone

On Lagdei there is a big wooden bridge that goes all around the perimeter of the starting point, which is really huge. Along the path there are various signs explaining the historical events that leads to the creation of this place. It is both relaxing and very interesting.

the wooden path

If you don’t mind a short walking, about 1h, you can climb up from Lagdei to the lake called “Lago Santo” (Holy Lake) which offers really a spectacular sight, just take a look at the picture below:

wonderful, isn’t it? another option, is to start from the point of Lagoni, and take a different path that leads you up to 1400m on sea level, until you reach another lake called “Lago Scuro” (Dark Lake). This one is longer, but offers more possibilities to explore several places in one trip.

this curious hole was in a big rock nearby the path

here it is, the Lago Scuro in all its splendour!

The latest 2 pictures below are taken from the starting point of Lagoni. The cool thing is that both Lagdei and Lagoni are easily reachable with car, even during winter, so you can start walking straight into the park.

a beautiful view of Lagoni

another picture of Lagoni

All in all, I really recommend to visit this natural park if you have the chance. It will be a travel to remember for sure! Ah, was about to forget: inside the park there are over 150km of cycling paths for mountain-bikes, all well-signaled. So if you like trekking, this is a very good place!

A few km away from Parma, the Torrechiara castle’s lies on the top of a “small” hill. Surrounded by vineyards, it offers the visitors a wonderful panoramic view of the landscape. You can already spot it from distance, from the road that leads to its feet, and suddenly you feel immersed in a magic atmosphere.

Built by Pier Maria Rossi between the 1148 and 1460, with the purpose of building both a citadel and a luxurious residence, managing to accomplish both goals. It is considered the best and most visited castle of the whole Parma’s region. Those characteristics made it a perfect location for the movie “Lady Hawke”by Richard Donner.

Inside there aren’t many furnitures, mostly decorated walls/rooms, the most famous of them is the “Golden Chamber” rebuild in 1911 by Amedeo Bocchi e Daniele De Strobel. If you want to rest there during the night, you can rent a room in the “Locanda del Castello”, opened all year, which is just inside the castle walls. If instead you’re looking for a great restaurant, we recommend “Antico Mulino”, just below the castle entrance, where you can find delicious dishes!

view of the castle from below, really majestic!

the castle entrance

Well I was wrong, even if in all honestly I can’t say that you eat better/healthier stuff in Germany than Italy, however I can’t complain at all. Expecially the breakfast! just take a look at the picture below… this is what had to offer a very small pension somewhere in the Black Forest. Comparing all that stuff with the miserable breakfasts that you can get in the 4 stars hotels in Italy…!!

a really good way to start the day, don’t you think?

The first time we went in Bavary we didn’t rent a flat, so we couldn’t prepare the food ourselves but had to go out everytime. (BTW, Argus offer a car hire Germany service which is a decent option if you plan on moving around Germany a lot)

First of all is very hard to find menu with english translations, except in the most tourist areas. It was easier for me to find menu in italian or waiters that could speak my native language (expecially near the Austria south border). In Karinthia for example, it is really common to met people that can speak italian better than english.

Regarding what food can you expect: if you eat meat, you don’t have a problem here… very famous indeed is the “wiener schnitzel”, a traditional Vienna dish, probably originating from Northern Italy, where is called “cotoletta alla milanese”, but there are many other delicious dishes as well. Instead if like us you’re a vegetarian, you can find exquisite salads, and the german potatoes are really great, expecially fried… so if you order french fries you can’t be wrong!

fish and potatoes, with a mixed salad in Mittenwald

The next years we rented a flat, so we could buy the potatoes straight from the local farmers (is really easy to find someone selling them in Bavary) and we cooked them in all the possible way. A real pleasure! Another specialty, or as they say “spezialitaten”, are the cheeses. There are so many and so good, from the spicy ones to the seasoned one, and so on. I still remember a shop entirely devoted to cheeses, called “Kase-Haus”, that literally means “the house of cheese”!

And of course you can find some very particular dishes like the one in the picture below, at the restaurant “Lilie” in Triberg… it appears a sort of dessert but it is a cheese-based dish, really particular!

in the picture above, a local dish we tried in a Black Forest restaurant

A word of warning: don’t try that if you aren’t well trained. We did it in Aprile, so it wasn’t too hot for sure, but still was really tiring! also the road does interrupts in some points so it is easy to get lost. It did happen to use and we had to walk the last 1-2km using a main road with cars, not exactly what we were expecting…!

In the picture above a sort of mirage of Giglio Castello. I’m still laughing thinking about it because we were saying “a few steps and we are there” and instead…

…instead as I said we got lost and above you can see that we had to take a walk in the main asphalt road to get there. In the end we arrived there anyway, just in time to buy some food! we started in the afternoon at 2pm and we thought to get there quickly, buy some food (like the exquisite “focaccia”, typical tuscan bread) and then get back.

But instead we had to run to get there in time before the bakeries were closing! anyway, it is a wonderful walk, and when we got back down again to the shore we found out what we did wrong… even if the indication could have been better!

During this time, hardware and home and garden stores and market booths display armies of baskets for harvesting these fruits of the woods. And in front of every house there are boxes of drying mushrooms. The boletus in this area is of excellent quality. In fact it earned the IGP certification (Geographical Indication Protected.) It is a real pleasure to taste the specialties that see it in a leading role in the many restaurants on the “Road of the wines and flavors.” They are well indicated along the road and the main thing is that prices are really acceptable.

It is worth mentioning that there are not only mushrooms, but also all the wild berries. Therefore in the villages there are many little stores that offer typical products made with raspberries, blueberries, cherries and chestnuts. I personally tried the “pappardelle” (kind of pasta) made with chestnut flour and served with a porcini mushroom sauce. Delicious!